


Toto, I Don't Think We're in the Right Genre Anymore

by fangirl_squee, madelinestarr



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Families of Choice, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 18:09:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6250123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl_squee/pseuds/fangirl_squee, https://archiveofourown.org/users/madelinestarr/pseuds/madelinestarr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raising the baby that was left on your doorstep, step one: you don’t have to do it alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toto, I Don't Think We're in the Right Genre Anymore

**Author's Note:**

> co-written with Maddie and beat-ed by Sophie - I feel like I say this every time but it’s true every time: they’re both amazing and I would be lost without them

Douglas Eiffel’s life was... pretty normal. He worked the overnight shift at the observatory outside of town, which was fine (if lonely) work. He went on a date every few weeks with someone new he’d met via online dating. He fought with his neighbor about what was the correct way to sort recyclables. He made up some fun rumors to tell himself about the “mad scientist” that lived at the end of the block. He spent most of his free time during the day fighting with his home’s Artificial Intelligence about how there never seemed to be hot water for his shower.

    And then one day he woke up around noon to find a small bundle of blankets wrapped around an even smaller child. Doug’s first reaction had just been to laugh, because, well, of _course_ this would happen to him.

    “Hera, are you there?” he called from his front porch.

“Yes, Eiffel? What is it?” said Hera, her voice echoing from back inside the house.

    “Did an old wizard, a cat, and a giant leave a Chosen One on my doorstep last night?”

    “It this the setup to another joke about racial stereotypes?” Hera asked, not even trying to mask her distaste for most of Doug’s humor.

    “That was _one time_ , and really, there is a _baby_ on my doorstep. Can you pull the footage from your security cameras?”

    “As I told you on Thursday, my outside cameras have been on the fritz since that thunderstorm... “ Hera’s tone changed from weary to excited as she processed what he’d said. “Is there really a small human outside? Bring her in!”

    “Right, right.”

As he picked the child up, they cooed and snuggled into him. And Doug was _fucked_.

\---

It took a week before Doug’s neighbor found out about the whole ‘mystery baby’ situation and to his credit, he had had _maybe_ three hours of sleep at the time.

Doug took the baby into the house, shutting the door quietly behind him so as to not wake them. He walked very slowly into the lounge and laid the baby down on the couch, kneeling down next to it.

“Doug?” said Hera, her speaker volume low, “what exactly is your plan here?”

Doug rested his elbows on the couch, propping his chin in his hand to look down at this impossibly tiny human, thinking for a moment.

“No idea, babe,” he said.

It was always a good idea to be honest with Hera, even if honesty wasn’t the most flattering thing for him most of the time.

“Does it say who left her?” asked Hera, “Usually in these situations there’s at least a note.”

“By ‘these situations’ do you mean ‘at the start of an urban fantasy novel’?” Said Doug. “I didn’t see a note, but I was kind of distracted by the whole ‘mystery baby’ thing.”

“Maybe it’s wrapped up in the blanket,” said Hera.

Doug very carefully unwrapped the outer layer of blankets. Underneath was a soft blue fleece blanket. The baby’s hand clumsily grasped the edge of it, pulling the cloth and catching Doug’s eye. Along the edge in the baby’s hand  was a single word, embroidered into the fabric: Isabel.

“Isabel,” whispered Doug.

He traced a finger lightly over her name, something that had been quietly stitched into the only thing that had been hers before she was Doug’s. Isabel blinked up at him with sleepy, trusting eyes.

“Hello, Isabel,” said Doug.

He’d called into work saying his mother had fallen ill (and she had, twenty years ago, but as far as he was concerned that excuse was still good), and was now spending every waking moment trying to figure out how to make this child _stop crying._

He was mostly doing it through trial and error. Like, a _lot_ of trial and error. Hera had a projection screen above the couch in the living room of surefire ways to get Isabel to stop crying, color-coded by who had suggested it. So far, they were all purple (Hera’s color) except for one that said “TV” in bright green. It had been more of a suggestion from Doug wanting to catch up on _The Flash_ than anything, but hey, if it worked who was he to question it?

They’d found a way to order baby food, diapers, baby clothing, toys, wet wipes, everything online - their living room looked like a Babies ‘R’ Us catalogue had exploded. That was a very, very good thing, because Doug wasn’t quite sure that the baby wouldn’t just die the moment he stepped away from the safety of the house.

Not being able to open the windows for fresh air for fear of waking up the entire neighbourhood with baby screaming meant that, according to Hera’s scans of the air content, it smelled bad. Like, _very_ bad. Doug’s sense of smell had been lost the second day due to an unfortunate run-in with the formula warmer (he did not want to talk about it).

Three very loud, business-like knocks made both Doug and Isabel look up from the baby book he was reading to her about [space](http://www.amazon.com/Jump-Into-Science-Steve-Tomecek/dp/079225581X). Doug laughed at the mirrored movement.

“Hey, Hera, who’s at the door?”

Doug didn’t want to leave Isabel on her own. He’d spent a lot of energy the last six days keeping her safe from everything, including herself. Who knew what kind of danger could find her in the few moments he was at the door?

“I still don’t know, Eiffel. You’ve been too rightfully preoccupied to fix my optical sensors.”

“Oh, you’re right. Sorry, babe. As soon as Isabel can sleep more than three hours, it’s my first thing,” Doug said.

Three louder and faster knocks came from the front door. Doug sighed, making sure Isabel was occupied with a small toy.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming!” he called out in the direction of the front door.

“What can I do for-” He opened to door to find his Mean Next Door Neighbor.

 _Shit_ , thought Doug.

“Shit,” he said, aloud, because not sleeping had destroyed any small brain-to-mouth filter he’d had.

Mean Next Door Neighbor, aka Renee Minkowski, was a retired air force Commander. She was kind of a hard ass about pretty much everything relating to him. Doug had just enough military schooling left in him that he called her by her last name, if not just Commander, out of habit. It always made her quirk a smile at him, which Doug desperately needed from her in-between being yelled at about improper rubbish bin placement.

“Hello, Eiffel, I -” Minkowski stopped short, her entire face wrinkling at the smell coming out of his house.

 _Right_ , thought Doug, _fix the optical sensor and then a shower. And maybe burn all of the carpet in the house._

“Commander, hi. What can I do for you today?”

“A, uh, a piece of mail arrived at my house, addressed to you,” said Minkowski, shifting uncomfortably.

“I’m, uh, I’m sorry about that,” said Doug, desperately trying to think what would have been delivered. He couldn’t remember ordering anything... unseemly in the past month. He was pretty sure he hadn’t, anyway. “I can just take it off your hands... where is it?”

“That’s uh, that’s the thing. I opened it. And I..... mayhavealreadybuiltit?”

“You... built it?”

What could he have ordered on three hours of sleep that needed to be _built_?

“Also, why did you buy a crib?” Minkowski continued, trying for a business-like tone to distract from the huge blush that was slowly creeping over her cheeks.

“I didn’t... Hera!” said Doug, turning back to the interior of the house, “Did you buy a crib!”

“Maybe....”

“With my credit card?”

“... I don’t have to answer that.”

“Well, um, I’m sorry then, Commander,” and there was that smile! Doug felt a rush of relief, that smile meant they were in the clear. “But since you’ve built it, the least I can do is take it off your hands.”

As Doug moved to close the door behind him, a small distressed noise came from his living room.

 _Shit_ , thought Doug.

“Shit,” he said again, because his brain-to-mouth filter was a smoldering wreck of its former self.

“What was _that_?” said Minkowski, her military training kicking back in, immediately was on alert. She tried to look around him to see the source of the sound.

“Um, definitely not a baby that was left on my doorstep?” Oh, it was a bad day for the tattered remains of his brain-to-mouth filter. “It’s definitely not the reason why my AI bought a crib on the internet, that’s for sure. The fact that you would even assume that is so far out of the ballpark, I’d say it’s not even in the same town. Now let’s head over to your place and-”

She was already inside his house. Okay then.

“Doug,” she called from the living room.

 _Oh, okay. Okay. First name,_ thought Doug, _That’s new._

“Doug, why do you have a baby on your floor? And why didn’t you _call me the second you found her_?”

Oh. If that’s what she was mad about, well, Doug could live with that.

\-----

Surprisingly, having two people (and a sentient house) watching a baby made it easier. Doug got to sleep more than an hour every thirty hours, which was refreshing. He got to take a shower at least every twelve, which everyone could appreciate. Isabel was eating actual vegetables (and so was Doug). Minkowski only fought with him on every other thing, and even when she was fighting him on something, he could tell she was at least listening to him, which was nice.

Minkowski called the Mad Scientist from down the street, who turned out to be a very nice man named Dr Hilbert, and got him to give Isabel a full check up. Dr Hilbert was delighted with the child, even though she punched him in the face the first time he went to take her temperature.

Still, Hera laughed, and Doug was wearing clean clothes, and Isabel had been given a clean bill of health (if a bit lacking in the Vitamin D department), so he called it a good day. In fact, he calls it that in writing - he made a whole page about it in the baby book to celebrate. It was another thing Hera bought off the internet without telling him. But he loved it. A whole book just about baby Isabel, for her to look back at one day and know that someone loved her _so much_ they recorded every milestone.

Of course, though, this wasn’t their baby. They couldn’t just keep her forever. During the ‘taking care of baby basics’ whirlwind, Minkowski had also called Child Services.

When the CPS Agent arrived, Doug left very calmly and had a panic attack as quietly as possible in the small bathroom of his house. Minkowksi gave him a concerned look as he left, but covered for him all the same. It was… not one of Doug’s best moments.

He’ was surprised Mr Cutter could still make him feel kicked around, even after all this time.

Doug had told Hera one late night, while bathing Isabel in his sink, about his mom. About the cancer, and about being put into the system just three years before he could’ve been a legal adult and could’ve gotten a job and could’ve _helped, somehow._

He told Hera, as he carefully shampooed Isabel’s hair, about how he had the worst possible Agent, a man named Mr Cutter. Cutter put him through military school for his last three years, even though he was always a more artistic kid - the kind of kid who played the piano with his mom, who wanted to study foreign languages in college. Not the kind of kind who did well in any form of basic training.

“And Cutter knew all of that”, Doug had muttered angrily, “and still put me through boot camp. And I don’t want that for Isabel.”

Hera had strained every auditory sensor in the house to hear him. Doug always talked, a constant running commentary of everything he was doing or thinking, but he’d never said anything like this before. His voice was serious and quiet, and his hands shook as he poured water carefully over Isabel’s hair.

“I want Isabel free to pick what she wants to do with her life. If she wants arts, or math, or sports, or nothing. I want her to be able to _choose_.”

So now, as he rested his back against the door and tried to get himself under control, Hera played some Bach for him, the musical version of putting an arm around his shoulders. She quietly told him about the kind of tests AIs are put through to decide where to put their programming. And how Hera imagined sometimes that she was in space around a star that Doug always talked about to Isabel, floating just out of reach.

“But,” she said, and Doug could hear the smile in her robotic voice, and he smiled at it too, “We’ll keep her safe... Doug. You, me, and Minkowski, and maybe even Hilbert. We’ll keep her safe.”

Minkowski knocked on the door, two quick knocks, to let him know that it was all clear.

“We’ve got a name: Isabel Lovelace. Cutter says her parents are either dead or MIA going back six months. And I... well, I adopted her, Doug.” She paused. “Well, technically, my husband and I adopted her. It’s something we’ve talked about for a while and -”

“You’re married?!” Doug cried at the same time as Hera shouted, “Adopted her?”

Minkowski laughed, a big, surprised laugh, like she can’t believe it either.

“Yes, five years this July. He’s been in Spain the past month and a half on assignment.” Her tone turned teasing. “You can’t think I’d want to hang out for you two for _fun_ , did you?”

She'd been there every day after teaching at the local academy, and she remembered to buy Doug’s preferred flavor of Pop Tart at the store, and she’d bought Doug nicotine patches this week, and she gotten Dr Hilbert to fix Hera’s outdoor optical sensors.

“You like us, Minkowski. No use denying it.” Hera said from the speaker above them, and Doug laughed.

Isabel squeaked from her room, and Doug and Minkowski turned towards the sound on reflex.

“She just rolled over onto a toy,” Hera assured them.

Doug laughed again. “Thanks, dear.”

He turned to Minkowski, saying in what he hoped was a businesslike tone, “Alright. I want us to figure out visitation rights, schooling, Hera, I want you to vet Mr Minkowski for anything that would make him an unfit dad. We need to talk about when we’re gonna show her Star Wars, where to go for preschool-”

“Doug!” Minkowski shouted, frustrated but amused. Damn it all, she liked her people. “First of all, it's _Mr Koudelka_ , and second of all, you're her Uncle Eiffel. We live next door. You're always going be part of her life.”

“Oh”, said Doug.

“It’s too late to back out now, Eiffel,” said Minkowski, “you’re part of her family.”

Doug’s chest felt tight.

“It’s been, uh, a while since I’ve been an active member of one of those,” he said, “I might be a little rusty.”

“We’ll be here to help you figure it out,” said Minkowski.

“Yes,” said Hera, “After all, we’ve managed so far, haven’t we?”

Doug thought of Minkowski, asleep on the couch next to him with Isabel cradled him her arms, and of Hera singing to Isabel as she played, and of Isabel, looking up at him with trusting eyes.

“Yeah,” said Doug, “We’ve done okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi: mariusperkins // madelinestarr


End file.
